Dakkster’s Top 300 Games, 30-21

Time for some Sunday gaming goodness, getting this list down to 21. As usual, check out the Top 300 Games tag to look at older posts. Let’s go!

30: Soul Calibur 2 (GameCube) – We used to play endless matches in SC2 and this is my favorite beat ‘em up of all time. What we did, usually we were four or five people playing together, was that we played a team game where we chose eight characters on each “side” and then we took turns playing until all eight on one side were defeated. I also plowed through the single player part of the game, which was more of a series of different challenges that you had to go through. Looking at the stats, I played about 1200 games with the character Yunsung. Link was a bit overpowered because he was the only one with long distance weapons, but if you just sidestepped, that was all taken care of. The extremely buxom girls in the game were… well, they had extremely large and bouncy boobs, so much so that it just became comical more than anything else. They’ve only gotten bigger in every sequel since then.

29: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC) – Whenever I think about this game, I think about atmosphere and a beautiful world to play in. The story is okay and the side quests are really good at times, but what kept me playing was the world I was playing in. It got me hooked from minute one with the beautiful music and the beautiful setting. Beautiful is really getting a lot of mileage here, but the game is truly beautiful in almost every single way. The only not-so-great part of it is the dialogue. The people look weird and there is a huge shortage of voice actors, so most of the people sound the same. It’s also a bit silly that in order to level up your athletics skill, you go around jumping constantly whenever you walk from one town to another. But all in all this is one of the best RPGs out there and I had so much fun with it.

28: Halo 2 (Xbox) – The game that got FPS multiplayer going on consoles. I played this two years ago or something on my Xbox 360, so I missed out on its release, but I really like the story part of the game and the time I’ve spent with it in local multiplayer has been a lot of fun too. The narrative in the single player story is interesting in how you switch between playing Master Chief and the Arbiter, giving you a better understanding of the enemy from the first game. I co-oped my way through it a couple of times and I think it’s interesting that they included a song by Breaking Benjamin at the end of the game. That felt like a gamble that, if it had paid off, we would see a lot of popular music in more games today, as opposed to just being the soundtrack in sports titles.

27: NHL 94 (SNES) – There was one pretty essential feature missing in this game that was added in later versions and that’s the season function. I promptly started playing my own season where I drew up a schedule on paper and counted goals and assists for all of my players. Most of the times I’ve played a season in the NHL games, I’ve played with the Detroit Red Wings since that’s my favorite team. Same thing here. Steve Yzerman ended up with something like 268 goals and 480 points in 84 games. As a reference for you normal people who aren’t complete hockey nuts like me, the most a player has ever scored in the real NHL is 215 points by the best player ever, Wayne Gretzky. In later years, me and my best friend have taken to playing Detroit vs Pittsburgh (his favorite team) in an endless stream of games. We’re so even and it’s a blast in every game. The games usually end up something like 9-8 to one of us.

26: Super Mario All Stars (SNES) – You can call this my cop out pick of the list because it’s a collection and I’ve been really really torn on where it should end up. We’ve pretty much all of us spent considerable amount of time with the Mario games, especially 1 and 3, but I don’t know… to me there’s something missing. I always preferred Mega Man to Super Mario back in the day if I could have my pick. Regardless, this is a collection of games that is almost second to none. SMB1 is THE video game, in my eyes the one that started it all (or restarted it all, if you started with Pong and those oldies). SMB2 is the black sheep of the family, but it’s still fun. SMB3 is one of the most impressive evolutions of a game series ever and then you have SMB The Lost Levels, which I’ve never actually finished. I will probably go back to it just to finish it one day, probably as both Mario and Luigi, but until then, it’ll have to remain that “too damn hard!” game I never managed to beat.

25: Resident Evil Remake (GameCube) – As good as RE4 and 5 are, they don’t hold a candle to the original game. It was the first game I got for the GameCube and today it’s the only one I haven’t wanted to sell. It is beautiful and sooooo damn creepy with atmosphere so thick you can slice through it with a knife. It’s a testament to some games really benefitting from remakes and it makes you think about how other games could be remade.

24: NHL 10 (Xbox 360) – At the time of writing this, it is four days until NHL 11 is released here in Sweden. I’m getting it on release and I’m trading in this sucker. Since I got it, I’ve played countless games, most of them online. It is THE hockey game to play and I hope that the next one takes it a step further. My friends and I have had endless fun playing together in the couch against random people on Xbox Live. The Be a Pro feature was fun at first but it didn’t hold up for long, especially when you started playing online. The center Thomas Johansson with the jersey number 36 was drafted by the Washington Capitals and quickly rose through the ranks, won the rookie of the year trophy and all that jazz. Then I stopped playing and forgot about that feature as soon as online matches caught my eye and I never looked back. At the end of summer my nephew was trashtalking about how he could beat me and I told him that he had no chance whatsoever. Finally we sat down and 12 straight wins (with a combined score of 80-23 or something like that) for me later, he wasn’t so cocky anymore. That was fun.

23: Half-Life 2 (PC) – I feel that this game is insanely overrated, much like Portal. Yeah, both are part of The Orange Box, but I felt there was such a difference between them, so I kept them as separate picks. I include in this pick, however, the “Episodes”. Writing this now, we are still waiting for Episode 3, so the story is not entirely finished, but it’s been years since Episode 2 was released, so fuck it. This game kept the narrative style from the first game and used more engaging supporting characters to tell a deeper story in HL2, for better or worse. Sure, Alyx Vance is a good female game character, but all too often I felt that she was leading me by the hand every step of the way. The pacing is one of the best things about this game and that’s an underrated thing. But the real star of the show is a weapon, just like in Portal. The Gravity Gun made this game what it is. Along with a solid set of vehicles and intriguing set pieces, the story has gotten deeper and deeper for every part, ending with a heartwrenching loss at the end of Episode 2. How it all ends in Episode 3 will be very interesting.

22: The Legend of Zelda (NES) – Link’s first adventure was awesome and it was also responsible for me looking up a word in the dictionary for the first time in my then short life. There’s a cave where an old man says something about a secret and a peninsula. I was seven or eight years old English wasn’t my first language, so peninsula was pure gibberish for me. Getting it translated didn’t help in making sense of the damn clue, but I finished the game anyway. One of the all-time classics. Not a lot more to say here, actually. Just give it a go if you haven’t already.

21: Mario Kart Double Dash (GameCube) – Another couch multiplayer favorite for the GameCube. We never tried connecting several GameCubes, although with hindsight I think we should’ve given it a shot. Then again, hindsight is always 20/20 and we still had loads of fun with this game. I never fell in love with the SNES or N64 versions and the Wii and DS versions are lackluster in comparison IMO. This is it when it comes to kart action. All the tracks are a lot of fun and the side games are also a really entertaining and that’s what this is supposed to be about. Pure goddamn fun.

Now I’m down to the top 20. From now on it’s nothing but slam dunks all the way to the top.

Dakkster’s Top 300 Games, 50-41

We’re down to the last five parts of this list. Or rather, the first part of this list. If you remember the prelude post in this series, I mentioned that I have a few other lists coming as well and that they’re related to this one. As always, check out the tag Top 300 Games to go look at the older posts in the series. Let’s get this one started!

50: Duck Tales (NES) – Capcom has produced some of the most wonderful games ever and they had such a hot streak going way back on the NES. Most people associate them with the Mega Man series and that’s all well and good, but you just can’t forget the other great games. Duck Tales is one of them and it’s my favorite Disney game. It’s one of those perfect platformers. Everything about it is fantastic, especially the music. Listen to this song and tell me it’s not awesome!

49: Mega Man (NES) – I think this was one of my first NES games and it took me several years to actually finish it. Why? Because it’s damn hard and damn unforgiving for a seven-year-old. It’s no frills Mega Man. No E tanks, no sliding, no Rush and no passwords. It’s pure Mega Man and with this concept, great things were to come… more on that later on in this list, though. Mega Man is one of those games that has stood the test of time and you can pick it up just like that today and be awestruck by the pixel perfection and awesome music. The Mega Man series has the best platform controls ever in any game.

48: MechWarrior 3 (PC) – Now we’re talking the best MechWarrior game that I’ve ever played. This is, in my opinion, the epitome of what a BattleTech game should be. The Mechs feel heavy to control, not as arcadey as in MechWarrior Vengeance, and the story is about kicking the clans’ asses, which has always been the best storyline in the BattleTech universe. It also follows the proper rules for building mechs and the briefings before each mission are the best I’ve come across in any BattleTech game. But most of all, the controls are just right. The feel is just “there”.

47: Deus Ex: Invisible War (PC) – Probably the most shat upon game sequel in history. DXIW is almost universally laughed at and considered a shitty game. It’s not a shitty game at all. It just happened to have to live up to the expectations set by the first game, which just happens to be one of the best games ever. I loved the atmosphere in DXIW and I loved the futuristic setting of it. It worked a lot of things from the first game into the story, but still managed to introduce enough interesting new angles. I thought it was a shame that it got a bit “consolified” as far as the detail writing got. I missed the in-depth books and newspapers that were strewn around the first game.

46: Super Mario World (SNES) – Once upon a time I finished this game and I finished it the proper way, by finding all the hidden exits. Then my nephew came along and started playing this game one day when I wasn’t at home. I came home later and went up to my room. He was so proud that he had finished a few levels on his own, since he was just five years old or something. He didn’t understand that he had erased my play file with the finished game. I got furious back then. Now I just laugh about it. Super Mario World is an excellent game and Yoshi was the perfect addition to the Super Mario series. It’s hard to find words to describe the Mario games. They’ve always been there and they’ve always been among the top games of every Nintendo console, simply because they are so good. Every little mechanic works perfectly and I can’t imagine SMW in any other way.

45: Rainbow Six 2: Rogue Spear (PC) – The first game introduced the concept of tactical shooting to the PC. The sequel perfected that concept as far as I’m concerned. The storytelling was a lot better, the planning worked a lot better, there were more useful weapons, the AI had been improved and so on and so forth. It was an improvement in every single conceivable way. Some of the most tense moments I’ve ever had while gaming was during the sneaking missions in this game, especially one where you infiltrated a huge mansion.

44: Worms & Reinforcements United (PC) – I like the Worms games, but I’ve never really felt at home with all the different cartoony versions. Why? This one. This is the original and it was perfect. If you aimed somewhere, that aim was accurate. I never got that feeling in the cartoony Worms games. Also, this game was the inspiration for one of the games higher up on this list. But all in all, this is simple, pure, destructive fun.

43: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (Xbox 360) – Puzzle Quest came from nowhere and stole sooooo many hours from me, but I loved every minute of it. It was such unexpected fun! The hammy setting and story worked perfectly and I really didn’t expect Bejeweled to work so well and in such an engaging way as a combat mechanic. Pure genius! The only downside was that the music, while being very good, got old really fast because you heard the same tunes over and over and over…

42: Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360) – Here we have RE4 and 5 in rapid succession. It’s a close call, but RE5 gets the short end of the stick. I like it over RE4 in some ways though. The characters, first and foremost. I’ve always loved Chris, Jill and Wesker over Leon and as far as new characters go, Sheva kicks the president’s daughter’s ass any day of the week and don’t even get me started on that bizarro Napoleon dude from RE4. There’s also one huuuuuuuge thing for which I love RE5 more than RE4 and that’s co-operative play. My best friend and I are both big RE fans and we played our way through this game together, something that was a complete blast. HOWEVER! This game, Resident Evil 5, is COMPLETE AND UTTER SHIT if you play alone and have to rely on the AI to control Sheva. The African setting is pretty “meh” most of the time and the most exciting parts for me were the industrial and high tech settings. The boat was an awesome last level.

41: Resident Evil 4 (GameCube) – The reason why RE4 ends up ahead of RE5 is because when it was released it was revolutionary and you didn’t see it coming. The first time I came across that insane bad guy wielding a goddamn chainsaw, I almost shit my pants. I’d read about it, but it couldn’t prepare me for it. I panicked and tried to take a stand inside a house, only to be overrun and finally decapitated by said chainsaw. Lovely! On one hand the game felt like a natural continuation of the Resident Evil franchise, but on the other hand it didn’t feel like Resident Evil anymore. Sure, it still had somewhat gimped controls, but you didn’t fight zombies anymore (and anyone calling them, or the enemies in RE5 for that matter, zombies is a clueless idiot who needs to be shot) and there were too many of them. RE4′s depiction of Spanish villagers is laughably silly. I keep imagining this redneck American who knows nothing about anything but Texarkana, plays RE4 and then actually thinks that Spain is some underdeveloped shithole of a country, full of decrepit villages and dark castles. Typical Japanese game development. But it’s so much fun and tense!

That’s it for this post. Tune in tomorrow! Same bat time, same bat channel! Okay, maybe not tomorrow, but in a day or three. We’re getting down to 31 in that one! Let me know what you think so far in the comments.

Dakkster’s Top 300 Games, 60-51

Time to fire up this list again, now that I’m back in action and everything. For those of you who are only checking out the list because I’m linking to it, I’ve been cranking out a few other posts lately. Check them out if you’d like. Anyhow, time to get down to 51 so there are only 50 games left. As usual you can find the older posts by checking out this tag.

60: No One Lives Forever (PC) – Cate Archer is the agent that, to me, is a classy mix between James Bond, Austin Powers and whatever female action hero you want to throw at the screen. In fact, Archer’s boss seems to be ripped right out of Austin Powers, copying the boss from those movies. But it all ends up being a very nice mix of action, bright colors, fun gadgets, hilarious dialogue and just an overall sense of humor that’s spot on.

59: Metroid Prime (GameCube) – I never actually completed this game, because I took a break pretty far into it and then when I got back to playing it I had forgotten the layout of all the places and I was supposed to find a bunch of hidden glyphs or something. That’s one of my biggest gaming regrets, but in the end… it doesn’t really matter. But I digress. Metroid Prime was for a very long time the GameCube game with the most powerful ambience. At first I was very skeptical about how the developers would transfer the Metroid feel into the first person perspective, but they pulled it off. The music also needs to be mentioned because even if it’s distinctly different from the other Metroid games, it’s still pure perfection for this particular game. Some of the platforming gets a bit old at times, but the action is tense and generally the play sessions end up being really long because you can’t stop playing.

58: Rainbow Six (PC) – I bought this game before I bought the book, but the game was goddamn awesome back in the day. It was like nothing else that had been released back then. Everything was just run and shoot monsters and suddenly, here came a tactical shooter where you shot terrorists and a single bullet could kill. You could also plan the missions in detail, but I wasn’t very good at that. I usually let my guys stand back so I could sneak through the level myself, but there were a few missions that forced me to plan an assault that came through two or three entry points simultaneously and that was just beautiful. The game’s story is a bit gimped compared to the novel, but for the time it was released, it was pretty good. I just wished I read the book before I played the game.

57: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) – I should begin saying that I never got hooked on the online multiplayer in this game. We played a bunch of split screen deathmatch, but my most lasting impression of this game is the single player part. The sequel was waaaay too all over the place, whereas this one was very focused and the narrative moving between characters and present/past worked perfectly. It wasn’t over-used or anything. The sneak-and-snipe mission in flashback Russia is one of the most memorable gaming moments ever. The game is extremely tense throughout the entire experience and it’s a must-play if you have an Xbox 360. There’s just one thing that got to me with this game and that’s the fact that I got it into my head that I should max out the achievements, resulting in me grinding my way through the story on veteran mode, which in turn resulted in me dying about … hell, I don’t know. 2500 times? I really have no clue. I just know that I died. A lot. And I didn’t even max out the game. I gave up on the next-to-last mission. Still an awesome game, though.

56: Bioshock (Xbox 360) – A lot of people love this game and praise it because of the freedom in how you choose your skill progression and whatnot. Same with the storyline and the way the characters and the story are presented. These people have obviously not played System Shock 2. I have and that’s why Bioshock ends up in spot 56 and not higher up. Seriously though, it is a very special game and it has mood and ambience coming out the wazoo. Rapture, the underwater city the game takes place in, is a character in itself because of its presentation. I also love that this game takes an enormous dump on the so-called “philosophy” of the hypocritical and intellectually dishonest bitch/so-called author Ayn Rand.  Objectivism deserves every bit of shit thrown at it and this game illustrates beautifully how fucked up it is.

55: Advance Wars DS (Nintendo DS) – When I got my DS, I got a handful of games and this was one of them. I didn’t really get around to playing it all that quickly because I didn’t really know what to expect from it. I hadn’t played the Advance Wars games that had been released for the Gameboy Advance, so I wasn’t really hyped about the DS game. Then I started playing it and I just couldn’t put it down. It is a perfect game for the DS as a platform and while the characters and story are EXTREMELY corny, they actually work and they actually engage me as a player to keep going until the end. The single player story part is also perfectly balanced in terms of difficulty progression.

54: Day of the Tentacle (PC) – This could very well be the funniest game I’ve ever played all the way through. It has some of the most hilarious writing ever and it’s perfectly complemented by the animation, art style and voice acting. Hoagie is my favorite character, but they’re all golden. The puzzles are really ingenious, especially since you have to send stuff back and forth between different time periods.

53: Thief: The Dark Project (PC) – Garrett, the protagonist of the Thief series, is one of my all-time anti-heroes. He does the right thing when he has to, but he also does the morally wrong thing when he wants to. He’s also been the inspiration to a character I started writing a novel about. I played the second game before I played this one, so it was like taking a step back in some respects, but not enough to make it a worse experience overall. There are several scary levels in the game, but the Bonehoard almost made me shit my pants. The zombies were extremely scary because, as Garrett, you’re not very powerful. The regular guards were also scary, of course, but the unstoppable zombies were one step beyond annoying. Tense doesn’t even begin to describe the Thief series. It is a beautiful experience.

52: Flashback (SNES) – How a game could have such a strong and movie-like narrative on such a relatively weak console as the SNES is astounding. I would almost go so far as to call it pixel perfection, if it weren’t for the somewhat confusing beginning of the game. Every movement by every character in the game seems so lifelike, which was very impressive at that time. Motion capture wasn’t really common then. The whole job system is also interesting.

51: Neverwinter Nights (PC) – I never actually really played this game on my own. I spent a week or so at a friend’s house and we co-oped our way through NWN. Another friend jumped in here and there too. I was playing as a rogue/mage while my friend was a tank wielding dual weapons. I pelted the enemies with arrows and sometimes laid traps. Later on I started throwing magic missiles and fireballs wherever I could and I also found that buff spells were really useful. Normally I don’t use buff spells in RPGs. Anyway, NWN’s story is nothing I remember right now, but I do remember the atmosphere. That game’s atmosphere made the entire experience. The co-op element was also extremely entertaining and easy to control.

There, down to the fifties, down to the nitty gritty.

Dakkster’s Top 300 Games, 80-71

It’s getting more and more interesting for every post that I get closer to the number one spot. Moving along down to spot 71 today and some really fun games are coming up. Check out this tag for the all the posts about the list, as usual.

80: Metroid Fusion (Gameboy Advance) – Samus Aran is a great heroine and I actually didn’t like this game that much at first. The changes to the classic Metroid concept, the fact that there were no metroids, it was all a bit hard to accept. About a fifth into the game, though, it became a lot of fun and the weird looking suit that Samus was wearing didn’t look so weird anymore. Her voicing her thoughts got interesting after a while too and all in all, I’m amazed that they managed to pack all that into a small GBA game. You went through the game being really scared of the evil Samus clone that was totally badass.

79: Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360) – Big step up from the first game in pretty much every aspect. Better graphics, better weapons, better control, better action, better narrative, better multiplayer, and so on. Gears is still very gray and brown, which is a bit of a drag, but the action is extremely solid and it’s a lot of fun as a co-op experience. Both the story and the Horde mode are good fun to play together with a friend and the goals you got for achievements made for some extra fun.

78: Mega Man 4 (NES) – The fourth Mega Man game was a clear step down from the previous game in the series, but it still had incredibly solid action, control and music, staples for the Mega Man games. Pharoah Man is the robot master I remember the most from that one, especially because of how his weapon killed off the last boss.

77: Mirror’s Edge (Xbox 360) – Before this game got released I watched the trailer over and over and I fell in love completely with the music and the aesthetic. I obviously didn’t know how the game would feel, so that was still a big question mark, but from the moment I finished watching that trailer, I knew I would love this game and I did. The feel of the free running is almost perfect and the way you navigate the levels is so intuitive.

76: Doom 2 (PC) – I never actually played the first Doom. I know, I know… but I played the second one a whole lot and we had a lot of fun with this one in multiplayer, especially with the version we played that we got from my friend’s big brother. He had changed the sounds of the game into a bunch of randomness with him and his friends. Random sounds aside, Doom 2 is a a scary game and it was extra scary back in the day.

75: International Karate + / IK+ (Amiga 500) – This game was pure cool back when we used to play it. The coolest thing you could pull off was the double kick to knock down both of the opponents. You, your friend, a TAC-2 joystick each and then just go to town on each other (and the CPU opponent). The bonus games between the matches were a lot of fun too, especially the weird one where bouncing balls and heads came at you.

74: Baldur’s Gate (PC) – I have a confession to make. I never actually finished the first Baldur’s Gate. I think I got about two thirds through before I stopped playing. That’s not a slight on the game, though, that’s just me being stupid. It’s a very good game and I loved the lush forests when I played it. My biggest gripe was that it was so very low-level. You never really built your character into something really interesting. Still, this set the standard for high fantasy games and still holds up today.

73: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Gameboy Advance) – The best Castlevania game on the GBA and it took the series to a new level. Soma Cruz is a weird name for a hero, but it is what it is and he is okay as the protagonist. Not much to say, really, it’s more Metroidvania that’s incredibly polished.

72: N+ (Xbox 360) – There is an achievement in this game that you get when you die a thousand times. You will die a thousand times on the way to finishing all the levels. It is so minimalistic yet still so fun because of the perfect platforming. It has a fun co-op component to it too and a huge amount of challenging levels.

71: Resident Evil 2 (GameCube) – The Resident Evil series is, on the whole, one of my favorite game universes. I’ve played a lot of the games and I’ve also read a bunch of the books. Zombies are quite simply a very effective horror to build stories around and Resident Evil took this one step further with all of the other horrors that the Umbrella Corporation unleashed upon the world. The second chapter in the game series is a memorable one and I really liked going through the game with both Leon and Claire. The police station was a great choice of location for this second game and the lickers gave me a lot of scares.

I feel like writing “some really fun games here” but that’s been true for pretty much every post and it only gets more and more fun, at least for me, the further I get into this list. Thoughts?

Dakkster’s Top 300 Games, 90-81

Time to count down some more on the list. As always, check out this tag to view all of the posts about the list.

90: Indiana Jones & The Fate Of Atlantis (PC) – This was probably the first point and click game that I really finished. Played it on my dad’s computer and it was really tricky. I really don’t understand why they didn’t just adapt this for the big screen when they made Indy 4, instead going with that Crystal Skull BS that turned out to be extremely “meh”. This game isn’t like most of the other point and click games that I’ve tried, in that it’s not completely illogical and whacky all the time. Most of the time you can figure out the puzzles without much help. This was the last great Indiana Jones game.

89: Ikaruga (GameCube) – Shoot ‘em up’s grand master as far as I’m concerned. You kind of need to re-program your brain to be successful at this game, but when you do, you just “get it”. What I’m talking about is the polarity mechanic. When you’re light, you absorb light attacks and you do normal damage to light enemies. But you take damage from dark attacks and you do double damage to dark enemies. And vice versa of course. Since the game only uses three buttons (one for basic attack, one for the special attack you build up to by absorbing enemy attacks and lastly, one for polarity shift), it seems easy to get into, but the learning curve is crazy steep. Then one day, you just stop playing frantically and learn how to use the polarity shift to your advantage and everything is a breeze. That’s when you can get into attack combos to max out your score, but I never really cared for that.

88: Gears of War (Xbox 360) – This first game in the Gears series is pretty good, but it’s not close to the second one. You kind of get thrown into the middle of things and you don’t really understand what’s happening. But then you get some levels into it and the atmosphere really ramps up. It’s a good co-op game, but sometimes it can be a bit frustrating. Great action, though, and it’s really visceral. The soldiers are ridiculously macho, but it’s all part of the game.

87: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360) – Some people probably thought this would end up higher on the list, but I thought this was a huge letdown after how well the previous Modern Warfare game played. It’s still incredibly solid action and the Spec Ops missions are fun, but that doesn’t take away the comparatively sour taste the single player campaign left me with. It’s not bad by any means, it’s just not great. Now obviously, I haven’t really played it on Xbox Live, but I’ve played it on local deathmatch and that’s pretty fun, especially creating a class that runs constantly.

86: The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind (PC) – Morrowind captivated me so much when it was first released. It was choppy like hell on my computer, but soooo beautiful. The music was wonderful and I could literally sit for a long time and just look at the night sky in the game. That’s how mesmerized I was. It’s a dirty, grimy RPG that really makes you feel like you’re a part of that world. The outlandish world was a bit much at times, but I had a lot of fun doing alchemical stuff, especially when it meant I could create a potion that would make me fly for three minutes while making me invisible. Lots of fun and very unbalanced. I never finished the game, but I still spent over 50 hours on it. The game is simply huge.

85: Cannon Fodder (Amiga 500) – War has never been so much fun! A game where you control tiny soldiers and kill enemies in the jungle. If one of your guys dies, you just grab another one from the long line of recruits. But you want your guys to live long so they get to go up in rank, etc. I played through this with one of my friends on his Amiga 500 and it was a complete blast from beginning to end. It has a lot of humor and you get a taste of it quickly because of the song that plays at the beginning of the game where the singer goes “War has never been so much fun!”. Why this hasn’t been remade into a current-gen game is so beyond me that I don’t know where to begin.

84: Bionic Commando Rearmed (Xbox 360) – The original was fun, this is that much fun and much, much more. The whole game has been remade into this lovechild of high definition graphics and sound and the gameplay of the old NES version. It just rocks. The feel of the game is perfect and the music consists of cool remixes of the original tunes. It also has a bunch of challenge rooms that I’ve tried to grind. I have the final room left and it just kills me. All of the other rooms have one tricky obstacle, two at most. The 56th room has an endless amount of tricky things to overcome, so you really need a perfect run to make your way through all of it. The game has co-op too, but weirdly enough, my best friend and I haven’t really spent that much time on it.

83: Condemned: Criminal Origins (PC) – A cross between brutal streetfighting, CSI and a horror movie, Condemned was a big and pleasant surprise when I played through it. As Ethan Thomas, you’re an investigator who gets caught up in a crime plot, trying to find a serial killer who imitates other serial killers. The game has an incredible amount of atmosphere and the hand-to-hand combat is really violent and visceral. Just one guy coming at you freaks you out a lot. Imagine three at once and you’re really on your toes. Awesome game. I’ve tried the sequel but that was a giant “meh” in comparison.

82: Colin McRae DiRT (Xbox 360) – I love rally games. It’s a special kind of driving challenge and you really need to pay attention to the guy calling out turns for you. DiRT has a great rally section but it also has a bunch of other disciplines for you to master. Some of them are just tiresome, like the buggy races and trucker races. But the hill climb and duel races are a lot of fun, plus the main part of the game is still rally racing. It is beautiful and it has great drive feeling.

81: Aliens vs Predator 2 (PC) – One of the scariest things in gaming is to play as a Marine in any AvP game and have a motion tracker go off and suddenly start beeping while you can’t see anything in the direction of the beeping. This game has that in spades. The only thing that’s a shame is that it’s heavily scripted. In the first game the aliens ran around randomly so you were never safe, even if you had played the level before. On the other hand, this game has a great story and great narrative. It’s also more interesting to play as the alien because you evolve throughout the game.

Alright, so that’s enough for this time. I plan on getting up part 80-71 on Saturday. Thoughts?